#xuvia

[direful]

good west coast morning tell me about the climate and broad strokes ecology of xuvia

good west coast morning!

Xuvia's climate is roughly quite similar to Earth's, since it's meant to be a setting I can share with friends who want to take a break from canon easily, be that as a player or as DM. Also because I'm not very good with earth sciences lmao.

That means roughly the same water/land ratio, two magnetic poles with ice, an equator in about the same spot... the tides are different, of course, and the active volcanic regions, but it's similar enough that most guesses as to the climate in an area should be close.

I'm still working on what weird magical creatures I want to include, but I have a feeling that at least one forest has a real problem with invasive squirrels from the Feywild. Sorry this hasn't been more interesting!

[direful]

Homebrew Q: tell us about currency!! Most common, differences btwn cultures (if any)?? Or alternatively go off abt like any cultural or regional fashion choices 👀

ooh okay currency is fun! I've only got a few developed regions at the moment but here we go!

The city-states on the peninsula and the inland kingdom next to them all use metal coins, with the classic D&D values of copper, silver, etc.

Krathe's coins have until recently been minted with a ship's wheel design to indicate the city's control of the peninsula's sea trade, but with the ascension of the Clockwork King are now minted with a cog. Ship's wheel coins are supposed to be returned to be re-minted, but the two are used interchangeably.

Luma Tower is a giant lighthouse containing temples and a huge repository of knowledge, and uses coins minted with designs honoring the gods of magic, learning, sea travel, and story, among other tokens for use within the tower only.

Jadena is Krathe's rival city-state, controlling the bottleneck at the top of the peninsula for overland trade. Their coins depict cartwheels.

Vreah and Ammery are like Luma Tower in that they only really use coins for imports, but unlike Luma, they barter or trade for domestic goods instead of using an internal token system. Coins from Vreah depict a wreath of wheat and coins from Ammery an acorn, but they're relatively rare.

The currently unnamed kingdom neighboring the peninsula uses crowns.

Klefeth, the kingdom along the river delta in the Great Desert, uses a system of only gold - coins are produced in different weights, and have holes in the middle of different diameters for stringing on a cord. They're a worldwide trade hub so coins from all over find their way in, but import taxes, purchasing major exports, paying for labor, and other official uses must be done with official currency. Anything else is fair game for bartering though, and jewelry is favored.

The northeastern steppes use a paper currency called leaves among the centaur herds and halfling families that primarily inhabit the area, but external trade uses silver bits.

Other regions will use other currencies - I've got another coin system planned with what are essentially pieces of eight, several regions use only bartering, and I'm sure I'll do something different with the regions I haven't built yet. Maybe I'll do something with arm rings or snake fangs...

[direful]

I'm bored at work - you know what that means! Ask me about my homebrew D&D setting!

[direful]

Give my fun spell casting lore, if u got it 👀👀👀 are you modifying or introducing any new schools of magic for classes like wizards, etc?

I might be!! So far I'm still working with the standard stuff, although I'm expecting to flavor a few things differently down the line. depending on how my worldbuilding lines up, it's likely I'll be adding one or two more schools of magic. I'm going to end up messing with sorcerers and artificers a little bit too, I think? we'll see!

as far as in-universe lore goes, i mentioned it a little bit already but the eldest of the 11 primary gods is the god of magic, curiosity, and discovery. magic is spread throughout the fabric of Xuvia on an intrinsic level, and I think most spells are the result of someone fucking around and finding out, and then writing down what they did.

I'm also planning to add wiggleroom to most spell components. for example, a spell requiring a chunk of granite as a material component isn't a hard and fast requirement and can probably be substituted for any kind of rock (or even anything suitably rockLIKE?) - the granite is there to represent Rock for the purposes of the spell, and anything that might feasibly invoke Rock will work to some degree.

I'm also very tempted to steal some Earthsea lore and weave true names into Xuvia at a much deeper level than I was originally intending.

[direful]

TIEFLINGS!?!??!?!

YES!!!!! Ok in the Lore they & aasimar are actually quite similar so I'm gonna slide a little of that in here too. This is mostly mechanics/origin but I'm working on culture!

so in Xuvia "tiefling" and "aasimar" are like, the ultimate recessive trait right. someone in their bloodline got freaky with a very powerful nonhuman (deva, fiend, etc), had a kid, the rest is history.

Kids after that first couple who have at least one mortal parent come out looking like their mortal ancestry 90% of the time, just to spice things up a little. this results in some ... surprises ... after a couple generations of mortal-looking kids.

however, family lines made up predominately of tieflings and aasimar tend to produce more tieflings or aasimar, especially if the parents have different mortal lineages. (Example: an elf-born tiefling and a human-born tiefling have children. They are much more likely to produce another tiefling than they are a half-elf.)

In addition, mortal carriers of the bloodline are more likely to produce tiefling or aasimar children if they live somewhere with a high magical resonance, or somewhere with a connection to the plane their ancestor was from.

tieflings and aasimar can have kids, but those kids will always be normal mortals, and the "recessive gene" cancels out. usually, their kids end up human, even if their parents' mortal lineages were something else.

because it's a weird magic thing, when one pops up they tend to blend into the culture of their parents. those looking for a community of their own tend to move to the nearest large city, where there's usually at least a semblance of one.

I'm still working out the general perception of tieflings in-universe, so I can't really say yet how other folks react to them - I need to develop my lower planes first.

[direful]

your xuvian elf lore, hand it over

IT'S IN PROGRESS....... I PROMISE I need to work on them a LOT more it's pretty standard stuff for the most part atm

elves can trace their ancestry back to eladrin, who can trace theirs back to the fae. the fae in Xuvia are the offspring of the moon deities (or, some of them? I haven't worked that bit out yet, alas). this makes them cousins of gnomes, goblins, hobgoblins, bugbear, etc. who also all have fae ancestry!

eladrin are not common on the prime material plane, and mainly settle in places where the veil is thin and the 'wild or 'fell seeps through. they remain close to their fey ancestry, and many families of eladrin are organized into sprawling branches with powerful archfae at the head. nothing much new there, but the seasonal court system in the feywild results in many eladrin who do not resonate with their "home" season/the season their family is aligned with leaving, either to another eladrin family or to the prime material.

other types of elves have eagerly adapted to the prime material plane. wood elves have organized into at least one primary kingdom and several smaller societies incorporating goblins and such. sun and moon elves are still a WIP, I'm afraid, but I don't think they or their ancestors came to the prime material willingly (as opposed to the wood elves, who love it here and don't really trust the whole fey thing). it would be fun if they got kicked out somehow...

drow are the most developed right now, although I haven't written much of it down. all elves are organized into family groups, but at least one large drow population takes it to the next level, organizing into crime families and fighting to control trade and business in the underdark and, for some ambitious drow, on the surface as well.

[direful]

are you fucking around and finding out with the magic in your world or what?

kind of??? the schools of magic are mainly the same as wotc canon. the abyss & hells are a little different and I've completely changed the planar system around - I actually have to finish that map soon.

the universe is built out of a dead god. more specifically, the creator god of Xuvia destroyed itself to release the potential for the universe to exist at all, giving rise to the eleven main gods. the eldest of them, Quonat, is the god of magic and mystery, and I'm pretty sure most of the magic in xuvia traces back to them fucking around and finding out.

[direful]

worldbuilding prompt: how do the different species/“races” interact with each other?

bro that's so much 😭 I will do my best but I'm not going to touch on everything bc it's not done yet so here's some bits of what I do have worked out

dragonborn and warforged actually view each other as cousins, and there's a great relationship between them. warforged were originally constructed as helpers for the gods, but when they gained sentience were offered a place in the world. the first dragon, tiahn (who is sort of like io in wotc canon?), was also constructed by the same god. dragonborn are descended from the dragons who are descended from tiahn.

centaurs and halflings developed in the same steppe region. I'm still developing their cultures and history, and it definitely wasn't always peaceful, but I do know that while the majority of centaur herds have migrated south on the continent, the ones who have remained in their ancestral range are on good terms with the halflings. traveling merchant teams from the region are very often two or three centaurs and a relatively small (5-15 members) halfling family.